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Syrian Hospitals Hit as Battlefield Grows More Chaotic

Doctors Without Borders on Syria Strike

Dr. Mego Terzian of Doctors Without Borders confirmed that at least seven people had died in a hospital in Idlib Provence that was hit by an airstrike. He cast blame on the Syrian and Russian governments.

By REUTERS on Publish Date February 15, 2016.
Photo by Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — The prospect of a wider war loomed over an increasingly chaotic battlefield in northern Syria on Monday, as fast-moving clashes pitted United States allies against one another and tensions grew between two major powers, Russia and Turkey.

Taking advantage of fierce Russian airstrikes, Kurdish-led forces advanced into shrinking rebel territory in the northern part of Aleppo Province, infuriating the insurgents and their principal backer, Turkey, which threatened “a severe response” if the Kurds moved farther.

The situation has pitted a dizzying array of warring parties against one another, illustrating how the enemy of my enemy is, as often as not, my enemy. Tensions have never been higher between Kurds and Syrian Arab rebels, who now accuse the Kurds of opportunistically attacking them in league with Russia and the Syrian government to advance their goal of seizing territory along the border with Turkey.

Those clashes are fueling a risky escalation of tensions, especially between Turkey and Russia. And they are pitting two American-backed groups against each other, since both the Kurds and many rebel groups in Aleppo receive American support.

As always, caught in the middle are civilians, with four hospitals bombed in a single day on Monday and Turkey and the Syrian insurgents accusing Russia of targeting them deliberately to drive them out of the area. Two of the hospitals were supported by Unicef, including a pediatric and maternity hospital, and at least 50 people were killed in all of the attacks, including children, said Farhan Haq, a United Nations spokesman.

Two of the hospitals hit on Monday were in Azaz, a major prize in the fierce battles unfolding in Aleppo Province. One was struck by what residents and the Turkish government said was a ballistic missile. A school housing displaced people was also hit, residents said.

Photo

Bodies outside a makeshift hospital after reported airstrikes on Monday in the Syrian city of Azaz, near the border with Turkey.Credit
Mujahed Abul Joud/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The attacks came as Kurdish militias and Arab allies advanced closer to Azaz, a critical border town, and overran Tal Rifaat, a town on the road to the border from the city of Aleppo.

Turkey, which views the Kurds as its worst enemy in the region and does not want to see more Kurdish-controlled areas along its border, shelled the advancing forces, led by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Front, for a third consecutive day.

“We will not let Azaz fall,” Turkey’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, told reporters on his plane en route to Ukraine, according to the semiofficial Anadolu News Agency. He threatened “a severe response” if Kurdish forces advanced on the town.

The advances were made by the Syrian Democratic Front, whose most powerful elements are Syrian Kurdish militias, the People’s Protection Units, or Y.P.G., but which also includes some Arab forces. The United States supports the S.D.F. in battles against the Islamic State farther east, but Turkey — a crucial American ally and NATO member — considers the Y.P.G. a terrorist group.

American admonitions to both the Turks and the Kurds to refrain from attacks appeared to have little immediate effect.

The Kurdish advances raised Turkish fears that they were aiming to unite the two Kurdish enclaves in northern Syria, now separated by a patch of Syrian rebel territory and a larger area controlled by the Islamic State. The larger fear is of Kurdish separatism in southeast Turkey, which could be inflamed by the formation of a de facto Kurdish state in the chaos of northern Syria and Iraq. Mr. Davutoglu declared that Turkey would not allow the enclaves to unite.

Russia’s Foreign Ministry declared that Turkey, by shelling the Kurds as they battled insurgents, was providing “direct support for international terrorism.” It also insisted that the American-led coalition against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, was responsible for a hospital bombing in Maarat al-Noaman, though United States military officials said there were no coalition strikes in the area.

The hospital in Maarat al-Noaman was hit by four missiles in two sets of attacks within a few minutes of one another, according to the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, which supports the site.

TURKEY

Azaz

Aleppo

IDLIB

Maarat al-Noaman

Mediterranean

Sea

Homs

SYRIA

LEBANON

Damascas

DARA’A

JORDAN

ISRAEL

50 mileS

FEB. 15, 2016

By The New York Times

Both Russian and Syrian warplanes operate over the area, in the insurgent-held Idlib Province. Residents said that at least seven people were killed, including five patients, a staff member and a guard. Eight more staff members and an unknown number of patients were missing.

The charity said about 15 buildings had been struck in residential areas nearby.

It was the second time in a week that a hospital working with Doctors Without Borders had been hit. The charity said an affiliated hospital was bombed on Feb. 9 in Dara’a Province in southern Syria.

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“This appears to be a deliberate attack on a health structure, and we condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms,” Massimiliano Rebaudengo, the Doctors Without Borders head of mission, said about Monday’s strike. Deliberate attacks on medical facilities are forbidden under international law.

Russian officials have said their country’s airstrikes do not target civilians and have not killed any, though the United States and allied insurgent groups say that Moscow has bombed indiscriminately.

Syrian antigovernment monitoring groups say that Russian strikes have been the largest single cause of deaths in the war this year, with hundreds of civilians killed.

Doctors Without Borders hospitals have been increasingly under fire in conflict zones. American airstrikes killed 42 people at an affiliated hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last year. The charity’s hospitals have also been hit in a Saudi Arabian air campaign in Yemen.

The latest strike came amid days of escalation along the Syria-Turkey border, despite — or, experts say, perhaps because of — the United States and Russia having agreed on Thursday in Munich to work toward a cease-fire, said to be starting by the end of this week.

On Monday, though, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said its warplanes would keep attacking rebel positions even after the cease-fire because it considered the rebels to be terrorists. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, whose military position has strengthened with Russia’s help, also minimized the significance of any cease-fire, telling a conference in Damascus that it would not stop his forces from attacking groups he deems to be terrorists.

Despite these apparent obstacles, the United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said in an email message that he had made a “surprise visit to Damascus to discuss concrete and timely follow-up of Munich commitments.”

Reporting was contributed by Maher Samaan from Paris, Karam Shoumali and Ceylan Yeginsu from Istanbul, Hwaida Saad from Beirut, Somini Sengupta from the United Nations, and Rick Gladstone from New York.

A version of this article appears in print on February 16, 2016, on Page A5 of the New York edition with the headline: Syrian Hospitals Hit as Battlefield Grows More Chaotic. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe